Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[xXx: State of the Union]

 

[Male Idiot]

Guys, I am sorry to rain on the autism parade argument, but the Empire can be mostly secular with religious leaders.

Like a reverse Imperium with Guilliman not being a religious zealot but ruling a theocracy.

Or like a reverse Saudi Arabia.

Empires or nations don't need to be 1-1 totally secular or religious. The US is secular but Biden worships Israel.

Most of the Empire can be secular with an elite core of super secret sith club members. Like Tie Figter's Secret Order. The Sithluminati, the Chokemasons.

This isn't a problem. The first Sith Empire was a full theocracy with castes, the priest class being the most powerful (designated Sithing temples) and the second Sith Empire being somewhere in between the two, showing a chronologic decline of overt Sithness.

Like how 15th century Europe was highly religious, 19th-20th somewhat, and 21st not at all.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Guys, I am sorry to rain on the autism parade argument, but the Empire can be mostly secular with religious leaders.

Like a reverse Imperium with Guilliman not being a religious zealot but ruling a theocracy.

Or like a reverse Saudi Arabia.

Empires or nations don't need to be 1-1 totally secular or religious. The US is secular but Biden worships Israel.

Most of the Empire can be secular with an elite core of super secret sith club members. Like Tie Figter's Secret Order. The Sithluminati, the Chokemasons.

This isn't a problem. The first Sith Empire was a full theocracy with castes, the priest class being the most powerful (designated Sithing temples) and the second Sith Empire being somewhere in between the two, showing a chronologic decline of overt Sithness.

Like how 15th century Europe was highly religious, 19th-20th somewhat, and 21st not at all.

Like I said, on paper, the Empire appears to be tolerant, secular, all that jazz. It's a trick. It's kind of like how the feminists and the SJWs pretend to be secular, but they follow the religions of feminism and social justice in the same vein as any religious zealot, and certain religious groups like Muslims get afforded privileges. Replace feminism, social justice, and Muslims with the Sith, and you get the picture.

Everyone in the upper brass knows that it's a front for the Sith. And a good chunk of them hated that arrangement and tried to overthrow the Sith, to no avail.

That, and there was no ''secularism'' advocated by the Empire. They just pretended to be tolerant of all faiths, but in reality, the Sith religion ruled the day and even infected the non-Force-users. It's like what Darth Jadus said back in SWTOR, ''we should spread the ways of the Sith to the Empire entire; plant terror and hatred in every heart.''

What Jadus imagined, Palpatine accomplished. The Sith way of thinking, down to how people at the top try to amass power and climb ahead, even at the expense of their own comrades, is Sith thinking. The Empire is a shell for the Sith, their dogmas permeate within the Empire's ruling culture, to the point where the same backstabbing and mind games that the Sith once played against each other are very much present in the upper echelons of Imperial power, even among the muggles of the Imperial elite. Not only that, but the Empire even operated Sith temples in places like Geddes, showing that the Empire's devotion to the Sith ways goes beyond just mimicking Sith politics.

Then you had the Empire supporting Sith organizations like the Inquisitors, the Shadow Guards, the Prophets of the Dark Side, Desann's Reborn, the Cult of Ragnos, and even a full-blown Church of the Dark Side which had the backing of the government, being used as a rallying point to keep the Empire from splintering. That is not secularism. That's full-blown support for a certain interpretation of the Force.

Fuck, the Empire even tried more than once to figure out how to give muggles Force powers. That's the most religious thing I've seen in Star Wars; trying to make the Force more democratized so that all can experience and make use of its miracles. After all, the Imperials turned muggles into Dark Jedi Shadow Troopers.

The Empire has done more to spread the influence of the Force compared to the Jedi, who usually just keep it to themselves and spit out koans that most muggles can't understand. The Empire uses it as a weapon to scare their enemies into submission, they operated temples like the Jedi did, they based their culture on Sith dogma, and they even tried to spread the use of the Force to non-Force-users in their ranks.

 

[Cheeseknife]

Guys, I am sorry to rain on the autism parade argument, but the Empire can be mostly secular with religious leaders.

Like a reverse Imperium with Guilliman not being a religious zealot but ruling a theocracy.

Or like a reverse Saudi Arabia.

Empires or nations don't need to be 1-1 totally secular or religious. The US is secular but Biden worships Israel.

Most of the Empire can be secular with an elite core of super secret sith club members. Like Tie Figter's Secret Order. The Sithluminati, the Chokemasons.

This isn't a problem. The first Sith Empire was a full theocracy with castes, the priest class being the most powerful (designated Sithing temples) and the second Sith Empire being somewhere in between the two, showing a chronologic decline of overt Sithness.

Like how 15th century Europe was highly religious, 19th-20th somewhat, and 21st not at all.

The secularization of what was mostly a religious society is just a basic commentary for the track of modern Western history. If the Force is a proxy for faith in God or the Tao, then the story that Star Wars tells is a world, or galaxy, bereft of its traditional moorings and a society now leaning upon secularized (i.e., without the Force as the governing body) institutions.

The irony of the Emperor and Vader is that despite erecting these governmental institutions, the Force still remains an aspect they must necessarily lean on despite the technological terrors they have constructed. In ROTJ, Vader is more machine than man--a walking symbol of secularization twisting nature into an abomination. That is the nature of the Dark Side. In ANH, Luke rejects his targeting computer and blows up the Death Star relying completely on the Force and not on technology. That is the true nature of the Force.

Some of the stuff Kreia and others hinted at was that the Force isn't idling by waiting to be put to use. The Force is an authority in and of itself. The Force has supreme governance throughout the galaxy and even the entire universe. The Force is leading everyone and everything down a singular path into some grand eschatology.

The reason why Emperor was so powerful is that the Force was channeled through the widespread belief and confidence the galaxy placed in the Empire as a proxy for faith in the Force. But then, a "great disturbance" is felt. Luke becoming a Jedi would disrupt the Emperor's powers and shake the foundations of faith in Imperial governance and authority.

The Hebrew Bible makes reference to God empowering demons and angels alike so that the peoples of Earth may wrestle with and conquer them. That's what I believe is going on here: The Empire was only so powerful because the Force made it so. The Force made it so to fulfill a greater purpose and allow Luke and the Rebels to wrestle with and conquer them. Ideally, in the end, the galaxy would learn not to lean so heavily upon the secularized institutions of their own making, but upon the Force and the Jedi ways.

This is also something Vader seems to have realized, hence his pleading with Luke to destroy the Emperor so they could rule the galaxy as father and son. Potentially, this would be possible--the Emperor's death would have left a void and the Force would need to redirect its trajectory. That trajectory would become Vader and Luke. Unfortunately for Vader, Luke refused him and that left Vader back at square one--back at his master's beck and call. The Force would not heed Vader's ambitions--it had other plans.

 

[Male Idiot]

That conehead trooper looks funny and janky.

What I am saying is that institutions can serve the spirit of a thing but not be the real thing.

This is even more important for fantasy universes. You want those magic mooks in your employ.

Though I think unintentionally the Force makes perfect sense. The light side represents the human empathy, the darkside predatory instincts that are also natural. Lucas propably never watched a biologist's documentary and as a fat hippie, thought nature is all hugs and tofu eating lions and picking Gaia made weed in a sunshine forest. Life breeds it, a little porg nursing its young feeds the light, it tearing a fish's head off feeds the dark.

 

[Cheeseknife]

What I am saying is that institutions can serve the spirit of a thing but not be the real thing.

This is even more important for fantasy universes. You want those magic mooks in your employ.

The Dark Side is fundamentally against the Force even as it uses the Force for its own will. Very much like Lucifer, you have these villains who hate God or the cosmic Tao (the Force) and even as they rebel against it, they also crave the power that it gives and must use it as a crutch. This makes the Dark Side a walking contradiction, people who believe they can use the Force according to their wills even though the Force works on a will of its own.

This is why the secular institutions serve in symbolic representation of how the Dark Side is essentially about trying to get rid of the Force and replace it with technological terrors. Nevertheless, the irony is that the Emperor cannot have it both ways. Subduing nature and retaining power both necessarily require the use of the Force, and so the Emperor uses the Force and so does Vader.

But even Vader is subdued by technology. The Emperor only trusts his right-hand man even so far as Vader has been made more machine than man.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

The Emperor is a Dark Side fanatic. To assume that his ideology or his empire is any bit secular is to be ignorant of both the movies and the greater lore.

In ANH, there was no secularism pushed by the Empire; they only attacked the Jedi because the Jedi got in the way of them taking over. The one Jedi who helped them take control was allowed to keep his faith and babble religious nonsense in front of meetings; even to the point where he strangles nonbelievers with his invisible hand and no one cares to stop him.

ESB and ROTJ shows us that the Emperor is attuned to the ways of the Force; he just uses it for evil while the Jedi use it for good, and his real concern isn't the Rebellion, which might as well be a gnat in his mind. His real concern is Luke becoming a full Jedi, since that would give his Empire a spiritual threat that their technology cannot defeat. The Emperor prioritizes spiritual matters over secular ones, to the point where he orchestrated the Battle of Endor as a way to convert Luke to the Dark Side; crushing the Rebels is just a tiny bonus. Look at how he reacts when Vader tells him of the massing Rebel fleet; he doesn't give two shits and wants to focus the talk on Skywalker instead.

Then you look at the Emperor and his royal guards, and both were modeled after priests and monks. The artists even talked about the design of the royal guards being rather priest-like, and Palpatine's monk garb makes him more fit to run a random-ass monastery rather than a galactic empire; he is a spiritual creature, just as much as the Jedi are. He's basically wearing a black version of the robes that Kenobi wore, minus the Samurai vestments underneath, showing that he's a corrupted version of what the Jedi were.

There was never any secularism pushed by the Empire in any of the films; they only struck down the Jedi because they were a political threat.

Then you get the metric boat-load of lore from the EU where the Empire supported several Dark Side organizations and even ran a church for it. That's beside the fact that they even operated Sith temples. Even random-ass pirates like Tyber Zann know of the Emperor's taste for Sith artifacts. One of the most influential works in the early EU was Dark Empire, which portrayed the Empire as being led by Dark Jedi acolytes of the Emperor, who was reborn.

There was always a religious side to the Empire, even if it is corrupted; the back-stabbing and power struggles between Imperials mirror that of their Sith predecessors. While your average Stormtrooper believes he's a white knight enforcing law and order, the typical Imperial Moff, Admiral, or General is more than likely infected with Sith teachings, and they either work to spread fear of the Empire across the galaxy, or they compete with each other for power.

That, and a secular institution doesn't necessarily mean it's anti-religious. The USA is a secular institution even from the start, because the founders wanted people to choose a faith for themselves rather than have the king or the feds choose one for them. Even many Christian kingdoms are secular to a point; they separate their religious leaders from their worldly ones. Kings cannot become popes and vice versa. The only exception is the Holy Roman Emperor, who happens to be a deacon of the Church. The Patriarchs and leaders of the Church are separate from the aristocracy and royalty that lead the state. Thinking that ''secular'' automatically means ''anti-religious'' is misinformed.

What I am saying is that institutions can serve the spirit of a thing but not be the real thing.

This is even more important for fantasy universes. You want those magic mooks in your employ.

The Empire has way too many magic mooks to be secular; the fact that they have an Honest-to-God Inquisition that promotes the Dark Side while persecuting the Jedi shows that they've chosen a side in an ages-old religious dispute. The fact that their ruler is also the head of a religion means that he's more like a pope-king rather than a secular head of state.

Though I think unintentionally the Force makes perfect sense. The light side represents the human empathy, the darkside predatory instincts that are also natural. Lucas propably never watched a biologist's documentary and as a fat hippie, thought nature is all hugs and tofu eating lions and picking Gaia made weed in a sunshine forest. Life breeds it, a little porg nursing its young feeds the light, it tearing a fish's head off feeds the dark.

Exactly. That's why I don't necessarily see the Dark Side as being against the Force even though Lucas keeps saying so; he obviously saw anger and hate as things that only bad people have, even though there's good religious people who have anger and hate. There's entire passages in the Bible where God, Christ, and the Prophets get pissed off and angry at the people of Israel. And as you said, anger and predatory instincts are natural to animals. So anger and hate are as natural and justified as anything; a Jedi meeting a Prophet of the Old Testament who's angry at the people's betrayal of God would probably tell the prophet to calm down, but the latter's anger would actually be rather justified, making the Jedi look foolish.

If you do not fume with anger and frustration over things like injustice and suffering, then you're not a decent person. The fall of the Jedi was deserved due to the fact that most of them looked the other way when people suffered, and at most, offered ice cream koans in the face of people suffering under political upheaval and crushing financial hardships. They only get involved when the Senate asks them to. The Empire, on the other hand, offered jobs, security, and a livelihood to countless beings across the galaxy. So in this instance, to the average bloke who needs a job, they're probably a bigger force for good than the Jedi were, especially since the PT showed that the Jedi cared not for the suffering of the average person, and even in the OT, the Jedi are OK with deceit and letting people die so long as their goals are met.

 

[Ghostse]

'we should spread the ways of the Sith to the Empire entire; plant terror and hatred in every heart.''

The weak should fear the sperg.

 

[Cheeseknife]

I love how the butt of the joke in all these is how everything made after the OT contradicts the OT.

The weak should fear the sperg.

Jadus used a lot of fancy words to describe really simple things.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

One thing that must be spoken of is the fact that the Jedi are, in the end, not fighters for a higher cause; they harness spiritual goodness to their cause, but that cause is blind service to an apathetic democracy. As Kenobi said to Luke in ANH, the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, and Kenobi tells Anakin that their allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy. Not to the Light Side or any cosmic entity. Their true master isn't the Light Side, but rather, the Senate. And we see that they're more than willing to be cold and emotionless when it comes to things. Luke's idea of what a Jedi is does not line up with what Yoda was teaching him in ESB.

I've already spoken a lot about the Empire and their veneration of the Dark Side. The Jedi venerate the Light, but they do not follow it above the Democracy of the Senate. Rather, they subsume the will of the Light Side to the political needs of the Senate. The Force is an energy field generated by all living things, and we know for a fact that emotions can be felt through the Force, like how Kenobi felt the pain and anguish of millions of incinerated Alderaanians. That means the Jedi should have felt the suffering of people in the Outer Rim whose hard lot in life was given to them by their sub-standard place in the Republic. Yet the Jedi chose to ignore this and continued to think all was good so long as the Senate, dominated by core-world elites, were happy.

Consider how the Jedi treated the Skywalkers. The Jedi were more concerned that Anakin has negative emotions due to his slave upbringing, than the fact that slavery still exists in their happy Republic that banned slavery by law. Instead of taking this as a call to action, to actually enforce the laws of the Republic and annihilate the practice of slavery, they continued to act as if Anakin having bad feelings over his shit childhood was weird, instead of addressing the root cause. Same thing goes with Anakin's son, Luke. Yoda openly told Luke to let his friends die; even though such deaths would've driven him over the edge. Yoda could've just said ''rescue your friends, but avoid Vader because he'll flatten you'' or something, or told him to contact the Rebels for help, but instead, he's A-OK with letting Luke's friends die. That shows a stunning lack of compassion that betrays the idea of the Jedi being compassionate.

Anakin and Luke had different ideas of what a Jedi should be. Anakin's reinterpretation of the Jedi code of compassion has him thinking that they are encouraged to love, and that's a lot more in line with someone who is compassionate, even though that's flatly false. Luke's idea of a Jedi will charge head-first into danger to save his friends, even though Yoda's idea would be someone who'd let his friends die so long as objectives are met. So it makes perfect sense in-lore why Luke's Jedi Order would be a massive departure from the old Jedi; not only did he not absorb Yoda's callousness and the old order's slavish devotion to politics, but his own thoughts and feelings allowed him to succeed where the Jedi of old failed; his compassion towards his father, which the Jedi tried to discourage, is what saved them both from the Sith. Whereas the Jedi of old had all the power, but their apathy and lack of compassion allowed Sidious to play the galaxy against them and decimate them.

I love how the butt of the joke in all these is how everything made after the OT contradicts the OT.

That was true ever since ESB. Remember when Vader was supposed to be the one who killed Anakin? That's not a bad thing in itself; franchises grow and evolve, and the Jedi can be lousy narrators since they openly admitted that their truths come from their own point of view.

 

[Cheeseknife]

In real life I could compare it to when somebody is acting "culturally Christian" without even knowing. They could be totally secular but carry a set of values that have a religious origin. Or a more tinfoil thing is how many elites claim to be secular humanists, then go an take part of weird satanic themed events. They certainly don't tell this to their underlings, but would imprint their values on society if they were doing weird stuff like that.

This is it. Basically, the Sith can only endure because of the Force, but fundamentally they hate the Force. The Empire is built on the old traditions, even as it tries to rebuild itself on its technological terrors. This is all contradictory, of course, but that's the nature of the Dark Side. Twisted and evil.

Very good analogy for modern western institutions.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

This is it. Basically, the Sith can only endure because of the Force, but fundamentally they hate the Force. The Empire is built on the old traditions, even as it tries to rebuild itself on its technological terrors. This is all contradictory, of course, but that's the nature of the Dark Side. Twisted and evil.

Very good analogy for modern western institutions.

Uh, no, they don't. The Sith love the Force, it's just that it's a poisonous kind of love, unlike the Jedi who have a consensual love towards the Force. If the Jedi are the equivalent of a guy who asks a girl out on a date, the Sith would be the guy who kidnaps the girl of his dreams and keeps her chained up in his basement. The Sith love having the Force around, and love using it, it's just that they don't listen to its recommendations when it calls them to be compassionate or peaceful.

Modern western institutions are not the same as the Empire; the Empire openly picks a side in religious debates, most modern secular institutions don't.

 

[Cheeseknife]

it requires a writer who's both willing and able to tackle the fact that the thing that your main characters fought for has become gay as fuck and doesn't want them around any more; Filoni is not that writer. He lacks the knowledge base, grit and worldlines required to write a story like that and actually pull it off, this also means that he'll never be able to write a character as based as pic related despite the fact that such a character would doubtlessly exist in the situation he's written himself into.

To be able to write about this would require knowledge of an era--a real world, era. Maybe some early precedent in real world history to draw inspiration from. Filoni might not be that writer, but that doesn't mean he couldn't just reach out to someone with the knowledge required to write that.

This the thing about Disney--I don't think the people actually conceive of real world historians as actual resources for being able to write compelling stories. Did Gareth Edwards even consult actual military veterans before Rogue One ? I know Rian Johnson, at least, has some background in Medieval literature, but the problem with TLJ was he taints his perspectives with post-modernism.

Point is, Disney is way too attached to formula and it doesn't even seem to occur to Filoni to draw from actual history in order to guide Star Wars down a realistic path as far as its political story is concerned.

 

[Pentex]

One thing that must be spoken of is the fact that the Jedi are, in the end, not fighters for a higher cause; they harness spiritual goodness to their cause, but that cause is blind service to an apathetic democracy. As Kenobi said to Luke in ANH, the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic, and Kenobi tells Anakin that their allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy. Not to the Light Side or any cosmic entity. Their true master isn't the Light Side, but rather, the Senate. And we see that they're more than willing to be cold and emotionless when it comes to things. Luke's idea of what a Jedi is does not line up with what Yoda was teaching him in ESB.

Which is a diminishment of the Jedi. Earlier in galactic history the Jedi had a wide range of occupations, up to and including royalty. After last Jedi-Sith War, the Jedi decided it was safer for them to turn into an impoverished, magical Praetorian Guard/Janissaries. There is a reasoning to it though. Some of Jedi's worst enemies have come from their own ranks. Better to submit their personal judgement and desires to the Code, the Council, and the Senate, than risk another Exar Kun, or Ulic Qel-Droma, or Revan.

Luke's Jedi in the EU was closer to the Jedi Order of the Tales of the Jedi era.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Which is a diminishment of the Jedi. Earlier in galactic history the Jedi had a wide range of occupations, up to and including royalty. After last Jedi-Sith War, the Jedi decided it was safer for them to turn into an impoverished, magical Praetorian Guard/Janissaries. There is a reasoning to it though. Some of Jedi's worst enemies have come from their own ranks. Better to submit their personal judgement and desires to the Code, the Council, and the Senate, than risk another Exar Kun, or Ulic Qel-Droma, or Revan.

That actually destroyed them in the long run. Part of the reason why the galaxy grew to hate the Jedi and were OK with them getting spaced was because they became puppets of the Senate. So when said Senate declares them guilty and executes them, well, everyone hated them anyways, and their employer deemed them to be traitors, so not that many people cared that they were flushed down the toilet.

Luke's Jedi in the EU was closer to the Jedi Order of the Tales of the Jedi era.

Especially since that part of the EU came into being at the same time before the Prequels. But in-universe, that's because Luke had to make do with what they could have, so he can't necessarily ban them from politics or having kids. That, and Luke was more emotional than his masters, so he saw no harm in such things. Especially since, as Mace Windu said, the Jedi were peacekeepers, not soldiers, whereas Luke's Jedi were mostly soldiers before they became Jedi, so the characteristics and trappings of military and secular authority were already intertwined with the religious aspect of Luke's Jedi.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

His original vision was just the six movies,

pretty sure the nine movies was bouncing around back in the 80s. Mad magazine even did an article back then about "lol imagine if they really made all nine"
Episode 9 would reveal that Luke's father really really was the Force itself. Because that would just be silly to have a character fathered by the Force, right? nobody would actually do that hahaha.

 

[Dixieland Buckaroo]

pretty sure the nine movies was bouncing around back in the 80s. Mad magazine even did an article back then about "lol imagine if they really made all nine"
Episode 9 would reveal that Luke's father really really was the Force itself. Because that would just be silly to have a character fathered by the Force, right? nobody would actually do that hahaha.

At one point it was even 12 films. The number varied a lot between the filming of A New Hope and Return of the Jedi coming out. Ultimately George got tired and punted at Return of the Jedi... until ILM's work on Jurassic Park proved to him he could do the prequels in his head. Heck, even during the prequels, he said it'd just be the six, but then he goes back and writes treatments for the sequels (prior to sale).

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

pretty sure the nine movies was bouncing around back in the 80s. Mad magazine even did an article back then about "lol imagine if they really made all nine"
Episode 9 would reveal that Luke's father really really was the Force itself. Because that would just be silly to have a character fathered by the Force, right? nobody would actually do that hahaha.

He eventually did it with Anakin, only to backslide in Ep3 and insinuate that Plagueis was the dad and he impregnated Shmi via the Dark Side.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

He eventually did it with Anakin,

Yes, that was my point.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Yes, that was my point.

And he backslid on that with Sith lore that insinuated that Plagueis was the boy's father.